Samsung Galaxy Nexus LTE Has Been Discontinued By Verizon

The Samsung Galaxy Nexus LTE, the first Nexus device to offer 4G LTE connectivity, has been discontinued by Verizon Wireless just over a year after it was released. The carrier is no longer offering the device online or in-store, and so the only way to bag one now would be to look for a secondhand model.

The Galaxy Nexus LTE was — and in many ways still is — an iconic Android handset. For dedicated fans of the platform, who admire Nexus devices for their speedy software updates, it was one of the best smartphones of 2012. It had its flaws, and Verizon didn’t really help with those, but it still had a big following.

To this day, the Galaxy Nexus LTE is still the only Nexus smartphone with LTE connectivity; the new Nexus 4 doesn’t offer this feature. Furthermore, the Nexus 4 is exclusive to T-Mobile in the United States.

Some might see these things as a reason for Verizon to continue selling the Galaxy Nexus — meeting the demand of would-be Nexus owners who either have to have 4G connectivity, or don’t want a contract with T-Mobile. But clearly the handset was no longer selling fast enough to be part of the carrier’s lineup.

Verizon first killed off the 32GB Galaxy Nexus back in October in favor of the 16GB model, which was reduced to just $50 with a new two-year contract. The carrier has never really given the handset the love it deserved by refusing to provide it with the latest Android updates. Back in November, when Google released Android 4.2 Jelly Bean, the Verizon Galaxy Nexus was three software updates behind the GSM Galaxy Nexus.

Thankfully, there’s a healthy community of developers who have been creating custom ROMs for the device for a long time, and that’s likely to continue for a number of years yet — despite Verizon’s decision to drop it. While Verizon may have given up on the Galaxy Nexus LTE, then, there’s a lot of life left in that handset yet.